


Runaway Knight

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Smuggler Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 19:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11020371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Years after the fall of the First Order, Kylo Ren runs away. He manages to keep his cover until a certain pilot comes back into his life.





	Runaway Knight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RidetheLightsaber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RidetheLightsaber/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author's Notes: Written for the prompt, "After the war is over and the First Order is destroyed, Kylo knows he can't go back to the Resistance. So he changes his identity and becomes a mysterious force-using smuggler with his own ship. He works whatever jobs he wants for credits and travels around the galaxy as a lone wolf, always on the run from anyone looking for him. Until he runs into Poe Dameron during one of his smuggling jobs. Kylo can't hide his identity from Poe because Poe knows him too well and recognizes him."
> 
> And yes, I did combine a Legends reference and a Dark Tower reference for Ben/Kylo's alias.

It was after the war that the former Kylo Ren chose to run away. That was the best way to describe him. Former. He couldn’t say that he was Ben Solo anymore, but he couldn’t say that he was Kylo Ren anymore either. He couldn’t stay with the First Order -- he had known that for some time, even when he had been on the bridge of Starkiller Base, that he couldn’t stay there. Not with Snoke. He had known that for some time, but he thought that there was no way out of the mess that he had gotten himself into. He could still remember what he had said to his father on the bridge.

_It’s too late._

And it was still too late. Some things were unforgivable. Just because Grandfather had managed to earn some degree of forgiveness in the eyes of Luke Skywalker didn’t mean that the former Kylo Ren could ever earn forgiveness in the eyes of anyone, actually. So he ran.

He needed an alias. The question was what kind of alias.

It was later on that he chose the name. Jacen. Jacen Delgado.

 _Jacen Delgado_. That was the perfect name. He couldn’t be Ben or Kylo anymore. He wasn’t the man who had ordered the deaths of villagers, and he wasn’t the Jedi who wanted to make the galaxy better. He wasn’t Light or Dark. Perhaps he never had been either of them. Maybe he had never truly belonged anywhere. Maybe...

Maybe he was really no one at all.

No one. That was the best way to describe him, actually. Long ago, he had wanted to be someone.

That hadn’t worked out very well.

So he operated under the alias of Jacen Delgado for years. Becoming a smuggler for those who needed a job. He didn’t align himself with either side; both sides had ultimately let him down. He didn’t stay in one place for too long. Snoke was long dead, but still, his words to Ben remained.

They won’t hesitate to kill you. They won’t care that you are their blood; they will kill you.

So Jacen Delgado, formerly Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo, ran.

***  
The thing about the matter of Kylo Ren was that it wasn’t as clear cut as saying that Poe simply hated him. It would have been easier to say it if Kylo Ren was a complete stranger. But the fact that he was Ben Solo...

Poe still didn’t know what exactly to make of that. It would have been almost easier if Kylo Ren were just a stranger. Some First Order member who he had no prior emotional attachment to. But Ben...

When he dreamed, his dreams were filled with Ben. Ben, begging him to save him from Snoke, and Poe being unable to. Ben, laughing with him, crying into his shoulder, anything and everything.

So Poe stayed awake many nights, unable to sleep. So Poe stayed awake, listening to Snap snoring and Jess muttering about the banthas stealing her sabaac cards. He wished that he could get to sleep, but sleep...

Sleep seemed to elude him.

  
***

It was one night when he went to a cantina to drown more of his nightmares that Jacen Delgado, also known as the former Kylo Ren, also known as formerly Ben Solo, saw Poe from across the cantina.

 _Perfect_. It seemed that one of his favorite safe places to go was disrupted. He got up, slipping the bartender (a nineteen year old girl who was filling in for the usual bartender after he’d fallen ill) some credits before trying to slip out of the cantina.

Emphasis on “trying to”.

It was when he was outside, getting back to the Solo Fire, that he heard Poe’s voice.

“Ben!”

And Ben Solo turned around to see Poe, and he couldn’t help but realize something: even after all this time, even when he was good as cornered and had nowhere to run, he couldn’t help but notice how lovely Poe was.

***  
The way that Ben looked in that moment, he looked almost like a caged animal. It was enough to, even after all the latter had done, make Poe feel a twinge of pity. How had the man he loved been reduced to this? How had he become Kylo Ren the way he did? How had he fallen like that?

“Ben,” Poe said, softly, and he swore that Ben flinched at the name, “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

A furrow came between Ben’s too-expressive brown eyes. Then he relaxed a bit. Well, relaxed would be putting it loosely. He looked like he was too tired, like he’d been running away for too long.

Poe wished he could say that he hated Ben, Kylo, Jacen, whoever the stang he wanted to call himself now. He wished it was as simple as that. When he’d learned about Kylo Ren’s true identity, it had been the equivalent of being hit by a speeder that had gone out of control. But the truth was, that hatred was more complicated than that. He could still remember things like playing in the Yavin IV jungles, for example, the first time they’d kissed (Ben was nineteen at the time, Poe was twenty-two, and they were both wild for the other, beyond hope, beyond measure), the first time they’d made love, things like that. He could still remember the boy that he had adored and the man he had adored, and so hatred was more complicated than that. Hatred and love -- the two were just two sides of the same credit chip, weren’t they? And just looking at the man, beautiful even after all these years, that knowledge hit Poe like a speeder gone out of control.

He loved Ben.

He still did.

_Stars and galaxies help me, I still love you so..._

“Ben,” Poe said, “Do you want to talk?”

***  
Small talk at the Solo Fire was not what one would call one of the former Kylo Ren’s strong suits. Even navigating small talk was a lot like trying to disarm a minefield; there was nothing relaxed about it, there was nothing calm about it. He was aware that some of his customers found him odd, and he supposed that was justified.

It was midway through the conversation that he said, “Why did you try and find me?”

“Just to talk.”

The former Kylo Ren laughed; it was a sharp, humorless sound. “After all we went through, you want to talk?”

“Well, yeah.” Silence reigned for a long time before Poe said, “I can’t hate you.”

And those words might as well have been a grenade lobbed into the former Kylo Ren’s world, because he didn’t know what to say to this.

Poe continued. “I’ve thought about this for a long time. And it would be easy to say that I hated you. After what you’ve done -- ’’

“I know.” And in all honesty, I hate me too.

“But I can’t. Even after everything that’s happened...I still love you, Ben.”

And a second grenade seemed to join the first.

He got up, stumbled towards his room, feeling as if the Solo Fire was already spinning around him. He wasn’t drunk, but he felt drunk, and he can’t take this, he couldn’t, it was too big, he didn’t deserve it --

Poe’s arms caught him even as he stumbles, and the former Kylo Ren was too exhausted to fight back.

***  
Of all the things that Poe expected, Ben trying to run away wasn’t one of them. Still, he murmured softly to him even as he ran a hand through his hair. Thick hair, thick beautiful dark hair that he remembered running his hands through in better times.

_Poe, drawing away from the sheer hunger of Ben’s kisses, feeling as if his lips have been kissed until they’re swollen, Ben’s hair messy._

_Poe, holding Ben in his arms, running a hand through his hair, playing with it, humming. “Your hair’s so soft, Ben. How is it so soft?”_

_Periods where they held each other close, whether they were sleeping together or in Yavin’s forests, Ben playing with Poe’s hair or vice versa._

Those were happier times, of course. Those were better times. Poe just didn’t know how, exactly, it had come to this, when he was there, comforting Ben even as he all but shook in Poe’s arms.

“I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you.”

“You should.” Ben wasn’t crying, but the tears were there in his voice. “So help me, you should.”

“I don’t. I don’t like what you did -- ’’

A mirthless laugh from Ben. “That’s quite the understatement.”

“But I don’t hate you.”

“I...I tortured you.” A deep breath. “I didn’t want to do it; I didn’t like any of the interrogations, and I did it anyway. I...I’m sick, I’ve got to be.”

“Why did you do it, Ben?”

“I wanted to find the map.”

“You got inside my head.” Poe could still remember the pain he had felt even as Kylo Ren -- as Ben had done it. Even that knowledge that it was Ben behind that mask was a lot like being hit by a runaway speeder, and judging by some of the reactions of those in Black Squadron, they likely felt the same way. They could still remember the relatively good-natured, witty young Jedi who was Luke’s nephew. Poe could still remember what Snap had said when the news had got out.

“How the stang did that kid become Kylo Ren?”

Poe continued. “You have no idea how much that hurt.”

“I have an idea now.” Ben took a deep breath. “Before, I thought I was doing what was right. The Supreme Leader...he encouraged me that there was nothing wrong with what I was doing. It wasn’t until I actually got out there that I realized that I was doing the wrong thing all along.”

“So you didn’t know.”

“Not the full extent of it.”

Silence reigned between them for a long time. Then Ben spoke again. “There’s really no apology I have that can make up for what I did to you. I betrayed you, in more ways than one. But I am sorry. I really am sorry.”

“It’s a start.” Poe didn’t know if he could forgive Ben; forgiveness wasn’t one of those things where you could wave a magic wand and make everything okay. But it was a start. It really was.

And from there, perhaps they could start restoring what they once had.

***  
It was the next day that Jacen Delgado, formerly Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo, he who had not fully decided on what name he would choose for himself, showed Poe around the Solo Fire. Poe spoke up at one point. “So, the name -- ’’

“It was after my father. I owe him that much.” To this day, he didn’t know why his father had ultimately forgiven him for killing him. Did forgiveness make any sense, really?

“Ben...”

He didn’t flinch. Perhaps one day he could get used to the idea of being called Ben. One day. But not now.

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s lovely,” Poe said. “So the ship...I was thinking, if you ever needed a copilot or anything...”

“You want to go with me?”

Poe nodded. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“You know it’s a big step, letting anyone into my life.”

“I know. But you don’t have to go back to the Resistance. Maybe we can go off and...fight some crime together. I know after Hordo...”

“That’s why you’re leaving?”

Poe shrugged. “Part of it. Plus...I’m not going to lose you again.”

“Nor I you. So...where to?”

Poe sat next to him in the copilot’s seat, the former Kylo Ren in the pilot’s seat. “Anywhere,” he said. “Anywhere.”

 

 

 


End file.
